Brunswick Underground Film Fest 2025 Review - The Code
Images courtesy of Brunswick Underground Film Festival.
Eugene Kotlyarenko’s The Code is a film that wades through the murky waters of modern connectivity without taking itself too seriously, its strengths lying in its willingness to mix post-irony and pathos. The film explores the chaotic dance between genuine human connection and our tech-driven distractions in the ever sensitive early days of lockdown, using a free-flowing narrative that often feels more like a quirky series of vignettes. The result isn’t so much a grand, sweeping meditation on life but rather a relatable, if at times scattershot, portrait of modern love and confusion.
What starts off as the impotent Jay (fellow indie filmmaker Peter Vack, with his peter on full display) hyping himself up to finally get laid by his girlfriend Celine (Dasha Nekrasova, of The Scary of Sixty-First), soon becomes an unorthodox power struggle between the two, as Jay attempts to undermine Celine's attempts at a COVID documentary, assuring himself that the endeavour is all in the pursuit of painting him in a bad light. While both clearly enjoy toying with one another, it soon becomes apparent that Jay operates based off what he anticipates, whereas Celine does seem to have a genuine interest in making something insightful, even if she does some fucked up stuff to get there. The dynamic between the two posits an interesting question of the distinction between performance and personality, if there even is one - isn't how we act ultimately a reflection of how we are?
The film’s chaotic structure works double duties as both a stylistic choice and a mirror of our digital world, where a deeply meaningful conversation can be interrupted by a random notification or accidentally un-muting a TikTok clip. Kotlyarenko, as demonstrated in his hyperactive and acutely online Spree, doesn’t shy away from these moments - instead he, along with his internet savvy cast (which includes Casey Frey and Ivy Wolk), opt to wink at the absurdity of it all. There’s an offbeat charm in watching characters juggle their inner lives against a backdrop of constant interference and self-administered surveillance, and the score by Dylan Brady of 100 Gecs only adds to the manic and tongue-in-cheek uncanniness of it all.
The Code is an earnestly off-kilter, free-wheeling journey down the rabbit hole. Its idiosyncratic, frequently chaotic presentation is not designed to be everyone's cup of tea, but it captures the spirit of the 2020s: unpredictable, isolating, fundamentally human, and more than a little horny.
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The Code is screening as part of Brunswick Underground Film Festival. The festival runs from the 30th of May to the 1st of June. Check out the festival website for tickets and more info here.